Five Things You Should Know

1. Eating Better, Sort of

An analysis of diet quality among more than 38,000 US children shows that their nutrition has been getting steadily better in recent years, but what they eat is still far from ideal and disparities persist by income, race, and receipt of government food assistance. The bottom-line measure in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, whose authors include Xiao Gu, an epidemiology student at Brown, is the 100-point Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2010) score. Over the study period the average HEI-2010 rose as kids ate more healthy foods and were more likely to avoid sugary drinks. Researchers found that as household wealth increased, so did the degree of gains.